Heal Me
by NothingImpossible
Summary: Captain Swan healing moment in the Underworld, based on the new promo pictures released this week for episode 5x15, The Brothers Jones. Three-part two-shot.
1. Bruises You Can't See

**A/N:** I'd like to blame a lot of people for this (you know who you are, you evil people), but ultimately I'm the one who did it. Sorry? Part one of two.

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters, not my world. Just my imagination borrowing them for a bit.

* * *

 ** _Bruises You Can't See_**

"Let's get you cleaned up," she said softly after everyone clears out, leaving the two of them alone for the first time since that cave. Finally. They all have jobs to do and usually she'd be right there with them, but not now, not when he's…

"Little help," he grunted as he limped toward the couch in the centre of the room. She rushed over, her hand grabbing his hooked arm before she even thinks-

"Ah!" he cried out, trying unsuccessfully to mask the pain that crosses his face. "Sorry," she mumbled, releasing her grip as she crosses to the other side, her hand at his elbow. She knew his arm was probably broken, he'd told her as much as she helped him from the chains that had bound him so tightly, but it was so hard to keep track of every one of his injuries.

"'S okay," he bit out, a forced grin on his face. "I nearly forgot myself."

She heard the lie, and didn't say a word. They made their way to the couch and she helped him settle on the cushion, his left leg extended in front of him, his knee swollen and twisted. She glanced at his face, his eye still so swollen, blood… everywhere, his jacket nearly saturated in it amid the rips and holes and burns. She was afraid to ask, afraid to find out, but she needed to know how hard, exactly, she should punch the bastard who hurt him.

"What did he do to you, Killian?" she whispered, her hand touching his shoulder, his cheek.

"Nothing I'd like to think about right now," he replied, his voice so soft and so hoarse, and she definitely didn't want to think about why.

"I'm sorry."

He flashed her half a grin, hiding a grimace behind his eye. "For what?"

"For not being there sooner, for letting him hurt you more." His smile faltered a bit, and she wished she knew what he was feeling.

He hadn't said much since they got back, not to her family or her, and her first thought was that he was tired, in pain, just didn't have enough energy to open up. She could help with some of that, she knew, her magic buzzing just below her skin, ready to fix what Hades had broken.

"You couldn't have stopped him," he muttered absently, his hand slipping under his jacket to cradle what were probably broken ribs, whether from being suspended by a chain or before, she didn't know.

"I know, I just…" she trailed off, and he didn't chase the conversation further.

She took a steadying breath. "You ready?"

He nodded, his eyes fixing on hers. "Aye."

She reached inward, pulling her magic forward, pouring as much as she can into her hand, into him. He watched for a moment, then closed his eye, a quiet gasp in his throat. His head went back as she watched the blood clear up from his jacket, his shirt, and eventually his face, the bruises and cuts vanishing as though they never were. Even his hair, limp and dusty, seemed fresher, cleaner.

He was back to himself, but he'd never looked so different.

He sighed, breathing deeply, as he pulled his hand from his coat, his fingers no longer bloody, and no longer decorated with obsidian jewelry of a time best left to memory.

"You're amazing, Emma," he whispered softly. He lifted his gaze to meet hers. She smiled, but he didn't return it.

"Better?" she asked, but he didn't reply, not out loud anyway. A nod, nothing more.

She could feel the smile slip away. "It's not, is it," she said softly, her hand on his arm, his arm that's no longer shattered underneath the skin.

 _Some wounds you can't see_ , she thought, wondering just how badly he was hurting now that he was healed.

She saw his throat move as he swallowed, hard. He looked at her, dark circles under his eyes no longer from bruises, and not from his familiar kohl either, and she looked back, but she couldn't see what he was hiding, his walls too thick to be broken with a simple spell. "I'm tired," he said, and he sounded it. "I'm just really tired, Emma."

She nodded, but said anyway, "You can talk to me, you know, Killian. I'm not going anywhere."

He looked away, at the room strewn with pieces of her abandoned childhood, or the future family they'd never have, she didn't want to think too hard about which. "I want to…" he started, but shook his head instead, cutting himself off. "I don't want to hurt you." He looked back at her, and she couldn't help remembering the reverse of those words he'd uttered just days before, in this very room. _I want to hurt you, like you hurt me._

"We have a lot to discuss, don't we." Her voice was not much more than a whisper, as the familiar pangs of fear and nerves she'd never quite rid herself of since that day in Camelot returned with a vengeance, and it only got worse as he nodded.

"Perhaps now's not the best time," he replied, his eyes gentle, but she knew they concealed a storm of emotion they'd only have to deal with later.

She waited a moment, allowing herself a second to collect her thoughts. "If there's something you want to say, I'm ready to hear it," she decided. "I know there's a lot on your mind right now, probably a lot you don't want to think about, too. If you need me, just know I'm here, okay?"

"That's part of the problem, love," he said quietly, and she realized that it was the first time he's used the familiar term since she'd found him. "You really shouldn't have come, especially now that he's got your name on a stone."

 _That's_ what he was upset about? That's she was in _danger_ here?

"Killian, I came to get you out without a plan, the fact that it's more complicated doesn't chan-"

"You needed to let me go," he interrupted, his voice tight but firm. "I _begged_ you to let me go, and you came here anyway."

"But Gold took-"

He held up his hand, stopping her. "I know, you only came once you found out I'd been cheated, I _know_ that." His eyes softened, so filled with the love she'd missed seeing for what felt like months, but filled with something else, too. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see you, I'm always glad to see you. But not like this, not after you ignored my wishes yet again. And not _here_."

She felt her throat tightening, her eyes prickling sharply with tears she refused to acknowledge, tears of hurt or anger, she really didn't know. "I couldn't lose you, not after you promised me I wouldn't, that you were a survivor."

He only sighed, his voice quiet, flat, _dead,_ as he answered, "I've much to atone for, and many apologies to make. And I don't want to argue, not when I can barely think straight." He reached for her hand, taking it tightly in his own, and she considered pulling away - for about half a second but the urge was there. "I'm sorry I said anything, Emma. Can we please talk about this later when I've had a chance to rest?"

She nodded, still too worked up to talk in a way she wouldn't regret.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes sincere. "And thank you for saving me from him, I really do appreciate it."

She wanted to cry, to yell angrily at him for pulling away. Instead, she forced a lightness to her tone that she did not feel. "Careful, it's becoming a habit, me pulling you away from the brink of doom."

He grinned gently, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Aye," he said. "That is what you do best, love." She didn't know what to say. She was finally sitting with him, the man she loved more than she knew what to do with it, in their house, in the damn _Underworld_ , and she didn't know what to say.

She'd never been more grateful for the knocking on the door that shattered their already fractured moment.


	2. Don't Cut Yourself On My Broken Heart

**A/N:** Do not dare me to write something painful. I take dares seriously and, in the famous words of a certain pirate, "I love a challenge."

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters, not my world. Just my imagination borrowing them for a bit.

* * *

They sat at the table in the kitchen in silence, just the two of them, digesting everything Liam had just told them about how to defeat Hades. Liam, _Liam_ , had sat here, beside Emma, the two most important people he had left in this afterlife, his brother and his love. The sound of the door closing after his former captain still echoed as Liam left to prepare for nightfall.

It was too much for him, after everything that had happened, the blood barely gone from his clothing, and his brother had been _right there_. He hadn't a moment to process anything from the last few months, few days, hell, even the last few _hours_ \- the graves, this house, wounds that nearly did him in still fresh in his too-sharp memory, the words he shouldn't have shared with her not moments before Liam showed up. He just needed time to think.

And he was just so _tired_.

He sipped from his glass, water his body didn't truly need, but it felt good still, familiar, the cool water soothing his throat so recently screamed hoarse from tortures he wished he could forget, wished his memories could be magically wiped as clean as his broken body.

Emma shifted in her chair, the scrape of wood on tile reverberating in the house filled inexplicably with toys and baby items.

He surely wasn't ready to dwell on _that_ thought just yet.

"Do you really think his plan will work?" she asked.

He nodded, hand wrapped tightly around his glass on the table. "It has to."

She was quiet for a moment, and so was he.

"And it's worth the risk?" Her voice was soft, and he could hear the unasked question behind her words. _Is it worth losing us?_

He nodded again, unable to meet her eyes. "Yes," he all but whispered.

He wanted to be sure, wanted to know for certain, but doubt pulled at him, swirled his fears, his hopes, everything he felt and everything he thought he knew until he couldn't separate them out.

The silence in the room had never been so loud.

She let out a shuddering breath, slow and soft, and he swore he could hear her heart breaking in her quiet words.

"I'm sorry."

His throat tightened at her words, knowing how deeply she meant them, but knowing didn't add clarity to his muddled thoughts. "I know."

"I shouldn't have held onto you so hard, I should have let you go. I just thought you wanted this, _us_ , as much as I did."

He looked up and took in the sight of her, half hunched over her arms on the table, her head hung low. "Emma, of course I want to be with you," he said quietly. "I thought I'd made that clear from nearly the first time we met. How could you doubt that, after everything we've been through?"

She raised her head, her eyes guarded. "I don't know what to think anymore." Her words were quiet, but they stabbed at him as surely as the blade that actually killed him.

He reached his hand across the table and took hers, holding her fingers tightly. "This isn't about us, Emma. I believed in our future as strongly as you. Even when you became the Dark One and it seemed all was lost, I didn't stop hoping for it, someday."

She flicked her gaze to their joined hands, then back up to meet his eyes. "Then what is it? You told me you'd never stop fighting for us, but then you gave up, twice!" Her voice was shaking as she continued. "I died that day, Killian. Do you have _any_ idea what it's like, having to kill the person you love? It _killed_ me to do it and - hey! look! - now there's actually a gravestone for me to prove it."

He could see the tears welling in her bright green eyes, and he wanted so badly to run, to get away, to clear his head before he said something wrong, words he'd surely regret for all eternity. He clenched his jaw, fighting so hard to swallow the emotions that threatened to push him over the edge, and he managed to force a calm over himself.

"I didn't give up on us," he said quietly, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I gave up on myself."

For all the times he'd bared his heart to the woman across from him, he never felt as exposed as he had right then, the deepest pockets of his soul about to be laid out right there across the table in the house that wasn't really theirs.

"I'm not a good man, Emma," he said. "I haven't been for longer than you can even imagine."

"You changed, Killian, you became a-"

"A hero?" He didn't laugh, but the urge was there. "I'm not a hero. I thought I could be a better person, I _thought_ I could change for you. But the moment the darkness took hold in Camelot, I failed, I fell right back into what I've always been."

She looked down at the table, to their fingers linked across it. "I couldn't lose you, Killian. You know how hard it was to open up to you in the first place, and I couldn't let you go, not when there was something I could do."

He squeezed her hand gently. "I'm not upset that you saved me, Emma. I would have done anything to keep you with me had the situation been reversed. But you didn't _listen_ to me, even when I told you it was the one thing I knew I wasn't ready to face."

"We could have fought it together," she begged, her eyes finding his again. "You said I didn't trust you, but I did, I believed in you so much. I was so sure you could beat it, just like you already had, and this time you had me fighting with you."

"But I couldn't," he replied. "Just look at what happened afterward, the things I did, the things I said to you. I can't forgive myself for hurting you like that."

"But you beat the darkness, Killian!" she pleaded. "In the end, when it mattered, you fought back and you won."

"How many times, though?" He knew his voice was getting stronger, longer, he knew but he didn't have the energy to keep calm anymore. "How many times can I fight it, how many times can I hurt you and the people I care about, until I finally lose to the darkness that I'll never get rid of?" He swallowed hard. "You barely know me, Emma. You barely have any idea of the things I've done, my life one long string of other people's tragedy. I tried to change but, if anything, you going against my wishes in Camelot only proved how impossible that really is, and how right I was to be scared of that part of myself."

He closed his eyes, struggling against the emotions bubbling furiously just under the surface, threatening to burst forth in a wave he was certain he couldn't control once let loose.

"And now you're here again, to save me, to pull me back, and, honestly, I don't know if I can do it anymore." He held onto her fingers. "I love you, Emma. I'll always love you. But I don't think I can be the man you think I'm ready to be, not if you can't trust me enough to see that I've still got so far to go. I'm not there yet, and I don't know if I'll ever be."

"I'm still a villain, love," he whispered, his voice breaking. "And villains don't get happy endings."

Silence filled the room once more, and the tear that escaped her eye made no sound as it ran down her cheek.

"I have a chance to move on," he said, his whispered voice the only noise in the quiet kitchen, and he heard the wavering in it as clearly as she must. "I can go with Liam, I can help him and I can finally stop fighting. I'm tired of fighting so hard, Emma, I'm so _tired._ "

She sniffed once, her hand pulling away from his as she ran her sleeve across her face. His fist clutched the empty air as he looked at her. He could see her hastily rebuilding the walls he'd spent so much time helping her take down, and he felt the last bits of his heart breaking.

"You're right," she said as she looked up at him, her expression flat, emotionless. "You deserve to rest. If this is what you really want, then I'll help you."

He nodded tightly, feeling even more drained than before. "Thank you."

She pushed away from the table and stood, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair and swinging it around her shoulders. "Then let's go." He rose and without another word, they left the house that seemed to taunt them at each turn with the future they now only had in their dreams.

As they stepped into the hazy Underworld light, he couldn't help hearing the soft click of the door closing behind them and thinking it was the loudest goodbye he'd ever heard.


	3. Touch My Soul

**A/N:** I couldn't leave it at that last chapter, I just couldn't bear it. I hope this makes up for what I've done. (All chapter titles have been taken from the lyrics of a song I've never heard, but whose lyrics fit the scene so well - Heal Me, by Billy Currington. I have no idea if it's a good song, I just really loved the words.)

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters, not my world. Just my imagination borrowing them for a bit.

* * *

She sits on the back step of the empty house and watches the rain drench the ground in front of her. He's leaving, she can feel it in the deepest part of herself, he's leaving and there's nothing she can do but let him go.

They'd failed, the mission was a trick from the start. Liam had no idea, he was just as shocked as everyone when the truth came out, and she hates Hades with a fire hotter than the one that burns under the path in that cave where they all are right now.

Everyone but her.

She'd given him the choice, what he wanted, what he begged for in Camelot and again in Storybrooke. She was breaking, falling apart inside, but she had smiled at him before they set off the doomed task, smiled and told him that she understood what he'd said that morning in the kitchen. But he had been wrong, at least about one thing.

He wasn't a villain, and no one knew that more than her.

Villains were Hades, trying to control their kingdom by torturing and blackmailing anyone in their path. Villains were Rumplestiltskin, manipulating sacrifice into selfishness. Villains were Cruella, utterly incapable of caring about anyone but themselves.

Villains took away happy endings, and Killian Jones had very nearly given her one.

Everything he had done, every horrible act he ascribed to his villainy, had been out of love. Anger, sure, misguided rash judgements, definitely. But there was no one in any of the realms she'd heard of in all the craziness that was now her life who loved more deeply, more completely than him.

A man who could love like that, there was no way he could also be a villain.

It was his love for her that helped her trust herself in Neverland. It was his love for her that helped heal the rift between her parents that she had been so certain was beyond repair. It was his love for her that helped her regain her magic, first in Rumplestiltskin's vault in the past and again in Camelot.

It was his love that helped him break free from the darkest of all curses and brought him here.

She'd wanted to tell him all of that, to _show him_ just what kind of hero he was, but he hadn't been willing, or able, to listen. She knew he was hurting, in more ways than just the obvious blood and gore, and she knew how much he doubted himself. She thought she could just make him see…

She shakes her head, forcing the what if's from her mind. It doesn't make a difference, she knows. He'd asked for a chance to make his own decision, she she gave it to him. And he chose.

He's leaving.

She feels the water seeping into her hat, her hair, the drops cold against her face, but she doesn't move, can't move even if she wanted to. He chose happiness, he chose to finally end his too-long existence, and she should be happy for him, for the peace he wants to find. She wants to be happy for him, but how can she when her heart is shattering slowly with each passing second?

She has no idea how long she sits there, it doesn't matter. She knows her parents will find her eventually, she's not exactly hiding. The porch light shines dimly behind her, illuminating the night in an awkward red glow that she's almost gotten used to. Might as well get used to, since she seems to be stuck here for the time being, her and her mother and Regina.

She feels the nausea rising, anxiety building in her chest. She swallows hard, the tears she long ago stopped trying to prevent falling freely to mix with the rain, the heat of them contrasting with the chill of the night shower. She'd allowed herself this time, this moment, to fall apart, to _feel_ the full weight of him going, but she has to pull herself together eventually. She still has her family, friends, Henry, and she can't curl up and die simply because he has.

She hears footsteps up the path, the sound of the gate opening toward the front of the house, and she wonders how long it will take for them to find her. She watches the horizon, the ocean view he would have loved, and waits.

A shadow falls across her, towering above her seated one, someone tall, definitely male, a shadow that moves to sit beside her, his weight creaking the step. She doesn't look up, figuring David will choose to speak when he's ready. He sits next to her in silence, and she is grateful he doesn't push her to talk first.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

Her heart nearly leaps from her chest at the words, and the voice carrying them. She whips her head to the side, and he's there, just as drenched as she is, water dripping from his dark hair, from his jacket, from the hand resting on his knees, and from his gleaming metal hook.

"Killian." Speech fails her completely, she can only stare at him, wondering if she's actually lost it completely, if this is the beginning of the hallucinations she's surely created to cope with losing him forever.

"I'm sorry, Emma," he repeats softly, his blue eyes bright despite the dark, glittering in his own mix of tears and rain. He's a bit out of breath, he must have been running, but she can't wrap her mind around him being here, beside her, on the back porch of their abandoned future. "I'm so sorry."

She just stares, thoughts racing, so many questions, so many things she wants to say. She is silent.

"I was terrible to you this morning, I have no idea what I was thinking," he continues, his voice low, huskier than usual. "There was so much going on, and I hadn't had time to think, I shouldn't have said all that to you until I had sorted it out first."

She blinks at him.

"What are you doing here?" she manages to choke out. "I thought you'd be gone by now, with him."

He nods and looks away. "Liam went, I couldn't go."

Oh. He must still have unfinish-

"It was open for me, for both of us," he says, looking out toward the ocean at the edge of sight. _Oh_. "I could see a ship on the horizon, the small village just on the shore, I could even smell the salt from the sea. But I couldn't go, I couldn't take that step."

She swallows, hard. "Why not?" she whispers. "That was your chance to finally be free from everything you've been fighting all your life. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"It was. I wanted it more than anything, to finally be rid of my demons forever."

"Then why didn't you go?" she asks. She doesn't want to hope, she doesn't want to guess, she can't take being wrong about this, about _them_ , not again.

"I didn't want to be free from you."

He turns back to her, the look in his eyes so pained, so broken, but so certain, determined. It's a look she hasn't seen on him since that night in Storybrooke, the night she drove a sword through his chest.

"I love you, Emma, and I want a future with you, I want it more than all the guarantees of happiness in all the heavens, if you'll have me."

She can feel the flood of tears building again, she can feel it as she shakes her head a bit, forcing her voice steady.

"What happened to being a villain?"

He shrugged. "I've never been a very good villain. Liam pointed that out after our failed endeavour. He said I get too distracted by the people I care about to be truly evil."

She would have laughed if she hadn't been afraid it would have set off the sobs she barely held back. "I could have told you that. You did interrupt a sword fight with me to save Aurora's heart."

He smiles, a real smile reaching the corners of his eyes, the first she'd seen what felt like ages, but it's all too brief, falling away into a frown before she has the chance to really enjoy it. "I'm so sorry, for what I said earlier. I never wanted to cause you pain."

It was her turn to shrug. "You were being honest, and I needed to hear how you felt, even if it hurt."

"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes so completely _sincere_ , "thank you for giving me the space to make my own choice."

She flashes him a grin. "You're welcome," and his smile returns.

But she has to ask. "What about what you said earlier, that you're tired of fighting?"

He nods slowly, biting his lip for a moment as he considers his reply. "I can't deny that I have darkness in me, Emma," he says quietly. "It's been there since I was a boy, and I'll probably never be rid of it completely. But, I think, we all have something to fight inside ourselves, and it's the things we fight _for_ that keep us going, and makes life worth living, in the end."

He reaches his hand out tentatively, his eyes asking permission before taking hers, and she meets him halfway in the space between them, clasping his fingers tightly.

"I'll always fight for you," he says, "for us, for our future. Your happiness is brighter to me than all the possibilities I saw at the end of that path, brighter still against the darkness in my past. I can't promise it will be easy, and I'll need time to…" his voice catches slightly, and he pauses to swallow, ducking his head a bit. When he looks back, there are fresh tears in his eyes, obvious even amid the raindrops on his cheeks.

"You're worth fighting for, Emma," he says simply.

She can't hold back any longer, and she pushes forward, her hand reaching for his wet hair just behind his ear, her lips pressed firmly against his. He kisses her, desperately, passionately, deeply, a promise in every move of his lips. His hook comes up to touch her back, pulling her closer to him, their hands still entwined together. She's crying, he's crying, their tears falling with the rain on their cheeks, a sweet saltiness that slips its way into their kiss.

They pull apart, desperate for air, but desperate for each other too, their foreheads pushing together, noses rubbing, breath mingling in the thin space between them.

"I love you," she whispers.

"I love you," he replies, and they both smile amid the tears.

Maybe the house doesn't have to be empty after all.


End file.
